Hi-Phi Nation
Activity Overview
Episode publication activity over the past year
Episodes
Rise of the Music Machines
16 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On this show we explore three different AI and machine-generated music technologies; vocal emulators that allow you to deep fake a singer or rapper’...
Effective Altruism and its Critics
09 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Curtis is setting aside a large chunk of money to donate to charity, and it is up to us to persuade him where he should donate it. Luckily, philosophe...
The Problem with Gig Work
02 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Willy and Heidi were both gig workers for Shipt, the fast-delivery app for groceries or same-day shopping. In 2020, they both realised: the pay algori...
Love in the Time of Replika
25 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We explore the lives of people who are in love with their AI chatbots. Replika is a chatbot designed to adapt to the emotional needs of its users. It ...
Living in a Zoopolis
18 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
A zoopolis is a future society that philosophers envision where wild, domesticated, and denizen animals have full political and legal rights. What wou...
The Digital Future of Grief
11 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When Justin’s mom was diagnosed with cancer, he knew he wanted to keep talking to her after she died. So together they made an AI version of her, tr...
Season 6 Trailer
04 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Coming April 11, 2023, Season 6 of Hi-Phi Nation will look at the future; of work, of love and sex, life and death, our relationship with animals, cre...
Cannibals
12 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In our final episode on monsters, we investigate why people who eat people are the funkiest people in the afterlife. We talk to a man who has actually...
Zombies
22 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The second in a three-part series on monsters in philosophy. We trace the cultural history of zombies from voodoo folklore, George Romero films, and t...
Vampires
08 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The first in a three-part series on monsters in philosophy. We trace the cultural history of vampires from Eastern European folklore to Twilight, and ...
Memorials
18 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
When tragedy strikes an individual, a nation, or an entire people, artists and architects are tasked with designing a public display that memorializes...
Life, Edited
04 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The first two gene-edited species meant to be introduced into the wild are currently in their final stages of approval, with trials already underway f...
Hi-Phi Nation Presents: Decoder Ring, The Alberta Rat War
27 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Barry invites Willa Paskin of Slate's Decoder Ring podcast to talk about their recent episode, The Alberta Rat War, as a set up to next week's Hi-Phi ...
The Selfless Kidney Donor
20 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Penny Lane gave up months of wages and weeks of her life to have her kidney cut out and given to someone she never knew, and who may never thank her. ...
The Man of Many Worlds IV
06 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
David Lewis steps off a plane from Australia in 2000 and falls seriously ill. In the final year of his life, he decides to take on Christianity, but d...
The Man of Many Worlds III
30 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In 1968, David Lewis decides that one truth can unify every theory he's had about the nature of the universe. It is the truth that every possible worl...
The Man of Many Worlds II
23 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What was David Lewis like as a person? The consensus is that he did not know how to converse. At Swarthmore, David Lewis discovers he has a knack for ...
The Man of Many Worlds I
16 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
David Lewis was one of the greatest minds of the 20th century, who few outside of academia know much about. By the time of his death in 2001, he was t...
Hi-Phi Nation Presents: Into the Zone (When We Were Cyber)
21 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Barry updates listeners on what to expect in Season 5 of the show, currently in production. In the meantime, he introduces you to Into the Zone, a Pus...
Justice and Retribution | Crime and Punishment
27 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A woman spends 40 years in and out of prison for shoplifting and finally gets a break from a judge in her late 50s. She uses the opportunity to abolis...
The Loophole | Crime and Punishment
13 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Two men committed a double murder in rural Maine in 1990. Only one pulled the trigger. The state prosecutor decided to try them separately, but that w...
Punishment without End | Crime and Punishment
06 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A teen-aged girl gets caught with a suitcase stuffed with powdered cocaine, and she comes before a federal judge. That judge learns that a felony conv...
Redemption in Solitary | Crime and Punishment
30 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Erick Williams tells the story of how one bad night in the chow hall got him into solitary confinement at Walpole. The path out of solitary, and event...
Gender Justice | Crime and Punishment
23 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
On this episode, we look at feminist and progressive prosecution; how does a prosecutor balance the aims of prosecuting more gender-based crimes while...
The Informant | Crime and Punishment
16 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This week we go inside investigative operations in NYPD internal affairs and in the war and drugs to look at the police use of discretion to selective...
Police Discretion | Crime and Punishment
09 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Is a mobile home a home or a car? Is a car parked inside a home part of the home? The answer to these stoner philosophical questions determine the sco...
Plus: Mens Rea versus Moral Luck | Crime and Punishment
02 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this Slate Plus segment, Barry is joined by Sarah Lustbader to discuss the issues raised in Episode 1: Criminal Minds. Sarah expresses skepticism a...
Criminal Minds | Crime and Punishment
02 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
One place where law and morality are supposed to agree is that there should be no crime without a criminal mind, what is called “mens rea” in crim...
Sponsored: Delivering Extraordinary Experiences with Customer Experience Expert Liliana Petrova
16 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
When it comes to closing a deal, generating client referrals, or getting repeat business, understanding how to elevate the customer’s experience can...
Season 4: Crime and Punishment (Trailer)
11 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
From writing criminal laws to rights denied to the formerly incarcerated, every single stage of the criminal justice system runs on unquestioned assum...
YOLO Apologetics
22 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Drake coined “YOLO,” short for “you only live once” in 2011, and then later apologized for all the douchiness it subsequently engendered. Bu...
The Illusionist
08 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Pyotr Tchaikovsky composed and conducted his final symphony in 1893. He died 9 days later, after having knowingly drunk an unboiled glass of water dur...
Uncivil Disobedience
25 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In Australia, vegan and animal liberation activism has recently become intense and disruptive, invading farms, restaurants, and city centers. They’r...
For Women Only (pt. 2)
11 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In the 40 years since the events at Olivia Records, gender categorization seems to pop up sporadically in the mainstream press, leading to what sociol...
For Women Only (pt. 1)
27 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
It is currently very difficult to get your gender legally changed in the U.K, That might change. In recent months, philosophers have been drafted into...
Demons of Democracy
13 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Preschool kids get their first taste of democratic participation when they vote on their class name, and democratic private schools try to display the...
Name of God (2019)
30 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
A few days after the New Zealand Mosque massacre, Dr. Thaya Ashman heard about a woman who was too afraid to come out in public in her hijab for fear ...
The Forever War
16 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
This year will mark the 18th anniversary of the war in Afghanistan, the forever war characterized by regime change, a surge, drawdowns, and then re-en...
No Offense
02 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
What if you could sue someone for calling you a racial slur? In the 90s, one country that always looked very similar to America decided to allow it, r...
Risky Business
16 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
How many innocent people should we be allowed to arrest and jail in order to prevent a single dangerous person from being free? The Supreme Court has ...
(Bonus) The Battle over CSOCs
02 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
On this bonus episode, I go into some of the history between the LAPD police commission and the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, and feature some of the ta...
The Precrime Unit
31 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Predictive policing technology is spreading across the country, and Los Angeles is the epicenter. A small group of LA activists are in a lopsided camp...
Season 3 Preview
18 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
After two successful seasons, philosophy in story form comes to Slate on January 31st, 2019. On Season 3, we look at stories of risk, experiments in...
Chamber of Facts
23 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Do people of opposing political parties believe in different facts? The mantra at the moment is that they do, because of media echo chambers, motivate...
A Night of Philosophy
19 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Hi-Phi Nation stays overnight at the Brooklyn Public Library during the 2018 Night of Philosophy. From 7pm to 7am on a Saturday night, thousands of Ne...
Willful Acts
30 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Army veteran Jim McKelvey applied for his VA benefits and was denied for willful misconduct. Thirty years later, Julie Eldred was sent to prison for a...
Creed and Credences
01 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Dave has been hunting for the one decisive piece of scientific evidence that will settle one of Christianity's most challenging questions. On this epi...
The Self and Survival
27 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In ordinary life, it is usually not hard to know who you are and who you used to be. For a small group of children around the world, their knowledge s...
Cover Me Softly
28 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
When Lori Lieberman was 19 years old, she went to a concert of a singer she didn't know, and ended up writing a poem that would become one of the grea...
Freedom and Hostile Design
23 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Some acts of expression are awesome, while others suck, and one philosopher has a new theory about the difference. Using this theory as a guide, we lo...
Drowned at Sea
19 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
In the process of preparing to testify in a divorce case, Brian had to study one of the strangest books he had ever come across, where religion, mathe...
The Ethics Bowl
28 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
High school students from around the country converge on the University of North Carolina for a weekend of moral dilemmas. We follow twenty-four of th...
The Bottom of the Curve
31 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
At the beginning of their adult lives, millennials are trying to find out what it means to be happy in their 20s, not knowing that they have no where ...
A Better Love
03 May 2017
Contributed by Lukas
On our season finale, we follow a mother's love through the stages of life to seek wisdom about what love is, what love does, and why love happens. We...
The Ashes of Truth
18 Apr 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Documentary film and science do not appear to have much in common, except that, philosophically, they have everything in common. Two men met in 1971 a...
Be a Man
21 Mar 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Our ideas of manhood and womanhood determine the ways in which we raise and socialize our children, but how much does gender in a particular society d...
Hackademics II: The Hackers
14 Mar 2017
Contributed by Lukas
One scientist decided to put the entire field of psychology to test to see how many of its findings hold up to scrutiny. At the same time, he had scie...
Hackademics I: The Control
07 Mar 2017
Contributed by Lukas
After years of unusual episodes dating back to her childhood, Anita went to the doctor and was told there was nothing medically wrong with her. "She h...
The Cops of Pop
21 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Two records from 1983 achieved minor novelty fame, and then faded away, only to emerge 20 years later as the originators of a curious genre of pop mus...
The Name of God
14 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
With a small gesture of good will toward Syrian refugees, one woman incurred the wrath of evangelical Christians on social media. The resulting chaos ...
Soldier Philosophers Part 2: The Morality of War
07 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
For some reason, when people kill others in wars, we do not judge them morally and legally in the same way as we judge them when they kill in civilian...
Soldier Philosophers Part 1: Moral Exploitation
31 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
When one Army soldier discovered the propagation of torture tactics during the Iraq war, he engaged in a one-man mission inside the organization to le...
The Wishes of the Dead
24 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Our lives are controlled by the invisible hand from the grave. Trillions of dollars of the economy are devoted to executing the wishes of people who d...
Season One Trailer #1
24 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
A brand new show bringing storytelling together with philosophy, Hi-Phi Nation aims to do for philosophy what Freakonomics did for economics, what Inv...